February 17, 2004

By Mike Emery
Staff writer

The University of Houston Division of Information Technology is in the process of replacing the campus voice mail system. The current system, having sustained damage by Tropical Storm Allison, has become increasingly unstable. The cutover to the new system, UH Modular Messaging, is tentatively scheduled to occur on Saturday, Feb. 21.

Implementation of the new system will have no effect on existing phones or phone numbers. Only the voice mail system will change. While any transition inevitably requires some degree of disruption, IT has taken numerous steps to make the transition to the new system as painless as possible.

“While we have targeted Feb. 21st as the cutover date, we will make sure the system and the campus is ready before moving forward,” said Charles Chambers, the division’s project manager. “If a smooth transition to the new system is not feasible at that time, or if there are any campus conflicts with the timing of the cutover, the migration to the new system will be rescheduled.”

According to Chambers, the need to replace the current voice mail system arose due to damage sustained during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.

All of the system’s eight nodes, which process and store data for campus voice mail services, had their life shortened by water damage during the storm.

“It’s important we provide a stable voice mail system for the campus,” Chambers said.

The current voice mail system has been in service since 1990, when the ROLM telephone system was installed on campus.

After a thorough evaluation, Avaya, an international leader in voice systems, was selected to provide the campus with the most current voice mail technology.

A week before the system is up and running, user documentation and self-paced training materials will be available on the Web at www.uh.edu/voicemail.

The new voice mailboxes also will be available, so they can be personalized prior to their initial use.

The Web-published user guide will provide step-by-step instructions on how to switch from the old system to the new one.

The instructions in the user guide will be sufficient for most UH voice mail users; however, if desired, faculty and staff also have the option of enrolling in one of the short instructor-led training classes that will be offered daily.

After the new system is operational, the UH community will be able to access old voice mailboxes for a grace period of 14 days. This will allow everyone the opportunity to clean out or retrieve old messages.

“We think our customers will be impressed with the new system,” said Dennis Fouty, associate vice president of computing and telecommunication services. “While we are forced to replace the system due to damage from Allison, the new system in the future will enable us to deploy additional services, like integrating e-mail, voice mail and fax messaging.”

The functionality of the new system is being implemented in phases to ensure the deployment is as transparent and seamless as possible for basic voice mail users.

“At the same time, it’s a very challenging project,” Chambers said. “We’re integrating backwards with our current telephone system, which has a very proprietary architecture, as well as integrating forwards with newer phone systems and other leading-edge technology to ensure we’ve positioned the university for the future.”